This week's aviation insights: Luton Airport's commitment to its future workforce, ATM's big challenges, innovation at Milan airport and much more!
International Airport Review
The leading resource for airport professionals worldwide.
Welcome to this week's edition of the International Airport Review newsletter, your go-to source for the latest in aviation. This week we feature Luton Airport's commitment to investing in the future workplace, an exclusive interview on air traffic management challenges with Martin Rolfe, CEO of NATS and insights into innovation at SEA Milan Airports. Listen to our latest podcast discussing geopolitical and activism security challenges in aviation with Johnnie Müller.
???Latest articles: Dive into our Editor’s picks
Eleven-year-old boy completes work experience at London Luton Airport
London Luton Airport - LTN arranges exclusive work experience taster for airport-mad youngster, as it looks to facilitate talent locally partnering with local educational establishments.
London Luton Airport’s Responsibility Business Strategy contains methods of attracting entry level talent and inspire younger generations into the aviation industry. One of the opportunities they have provided was to give a chance to one lucky airport-mad schoolboy, 11-year-old Seth Drinkell from Watford, who got the chance for airport work experience. Nick Jones, HR Director at London Luton Airport, spoke about the programme stating: “We are committed to investing in our future workforce, and have joined forces with a number of local schools and colleges to deliver career and skills development workshops. This year, hundreds of students have taken part with LLA staff providing valuable career insights and advice.”
Tackling aviation’s big air traffic management challenges
Martin Rolfe , NATS Chief Executive Officer, gives an overview of the challenges the aviation sector faces in the midst of one of the biggest periods of change in its history.
Aviation has been, and continues to be, an overwhelming source for good in the world, but it also has major challenges it must strive to overcome in the coming years and decades if we are to ensure a ‘better tomorrow’. I’ve focussed on three areas of transformation where the ATM community has a unique role to play in helping the industry continue to be successful, sustainable and secure.
Taking action on the climate crisis
This must be a decade of action on climate change. The industry is quite rightly pushing hard on new technologies, most notably Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), hydrogen/electric aircraft and fleet renewal. Great strides are being made with airlines ordering record volumes of new fleet, but production will only be able to release these into operation at a gradual pace and in terms of SAF, the reality is we are still a long way from scalability........
Creating tailored experiences within the airport
On 25 July 2024, International Airport Review hosted a webinar on ‘Creating tailored experiences within the airport’, featuring speakers from Aena, Athens, Warsaw Modlin and Sydney Airports. The presenters were inundated with questions from the live audience, so two of the speakers have taken the time to provide their answers retrospectively.
Q: How do you commercialise/advertise your airside/landside products/services as part of the passenger pre-flight digital journey?
Ioanna Papadopoulou , Athens International Airport : As Athens Airport’s official parking faces intense competition, with more than 15 different parking lots located in the vicinity, a comprehensive multi-channel strategy has been implemented to advertise our service offering.
More specifically, our strategy includes utilisation of digital media such as Google AdWords (search), Performance Max (PMax), Meta and LinkedIn, with conversion campaigns continuously active 24/7 throughout the year. This ensures that our service remains consistently visible to potential customers, maximising opportunities for engagement and booking at all times.
It also involves direct marketing through newsletters to our customer base, featuring all offers and promotions available on our official website.
Parallel to digital media, offline media is also significant, incorporating on-site out-of-home (OOH) advertising as well as printed ADs in various targeted publications and magazines to reach potential customers.
On top of that, the official airport parking leverages synergies with the international and Greek concepts and stores of Airport Agora for cross-promotion campaigns and exclusive offers to enhance the overall experience for travellers.
This integrated approach ensures that Athens International Airport effectively engages passengers throughout their pre-flight digital journey, keeping the airport’s parking services top of mind in a competitive landscape.
As far as the retail and food and beverage (F&B) offering is concerned, there is an ‘umbrella campaign’ using the Euphoria concept (Euphoria taste, shopping Euphoria, etc.) and our respective advertising/commercial strategy includes utilisation of all the above digital media/channels of communication.
Additionally, as of the beginning of the year, a strategic co-operation, among a selected airline, the airport and selected airport’s outlets, has been activated under the Euphoria campaign. During the first part of the year, Emirates, the Duty Free Shops and the airport have been using their channels of digital communication in a joint promotion under the slogan ‘Feel the Shopping Euphoria’, including the organisation of contests, lotteries etc., aiming both at the passenger pre-flight digital journey as well as at the in-situ (at the airport) interaction with the passenger. Presently, Turkish Airlines is in a strategic co-operation with selected F&B outlets at the airport and the airport itself under the slogan ‘Taste Euphoria’, also using all digital means of communication for the advertising/promotion of the respective F&B outlets.
International Airport Review hosted a webinar on leveraging data and technology in order to create a modern personalised airport experience for passengers. In this article, the speakers dive into some of the fantastic questions asked by the live audience.
Roberto Martín Davara , Aena : The digital journey is crucial, particularly for passengers seeking a 100% seamless travel experience. Through our website or app, you can not only explore various products and services, but also book them. This includes services like ‘Food To Fly’, ‘Shop To Fly’, VIP Lounges and parking, all easily bookable from your phone. Personalisation is also a key aspect of the digital journey, offering tailored products to meet individual needs.
From buzzwords to the runway: A step-by?step approach to starting an airport innovation department
Mario Ponta , Director of Innovation Quality and Continuous Improvement of SEA Milan Airports , shares his experience in starting the brand-new innovation department, tackling the challenge to turn ideas into effective improvement.
SEA Milan Airports, in charge of managing both Linate and Malpensa Airports (about 35 million pax overall) had no innovation department in its organisation chart, until May 2023.
Nevertheless, since 2019, SEA has marked a significant record in implementing innovations. For example, we achieved a well-recognised leadership in smart security baggage control and in implementing biometrics to enable a seamless journey (e.g. FaceBoarding at pre-security and boarding gates).
The above premise is to clarify that any discussion related to the innovation management did not come from a negative history. Quite the opposite, it came from the awareness that the positive results achieved in specific business areas, could be shared across the company, enabling synergies and cross-fertilisation, through a more structured process.
How and why, did SEA make the decision to introduce an innovation department and what challenges are expected in implementing it? In our case, the answer is the outcome of a step-by-step, self-assessment process.
??VIDEO: Demand and supply: Elizabeth Axtelius on bridging the gap
International Airport Review’s Editorial Assistant Chunekshi Wimalasuriya attended this year’s Routes Europe in Aarhus, Denmark.
Here she caught up with Flughafen Wien - Vienna Airport ‘s Head of Aviation Development Belina Neumann , discussing topics such as:
??OUR LATEST PODCAST: Talking geopolitical and activism security challenges in aviation with Johnnie Müller
For this exclusive International Airport Review podcast, Editor Holly Miles caught up with Johnnie Müller , Senior Vice President of Security Services and Crisis Response at Copenhagen Airports A/S .
Johnnie discussed the security incident which saw the security checkpoint at Copenhagen temporarily closed on April 9, 2024, due to a “suspicious object” and their lessons learned. He also went on to discuss the rise in activism and drone-related security threats and how they are working to tackle this.
The threat of war and geopolitical tensions are the biggest threat according to Johnnie, European countries talk about preparing for war – defence budgets are increasing in Europe and in NATO allies and this has an impact on aviation, because if countries are increasing their armies then this has an effect on an airport’s workforce.
Johnnie concluded by talking about his workforce, saying that after the COVID-19 pandemic, aviation has lost its appeal.
In 2022, 50% of the security workforce at the airport was new recruits, this number has now gone up and currently 65% of the airport’s security workforce have been recruited in the past 6 months. Copenhagen Airport runs its security in-house which they are very proud of and helps them create a strong security culture.
Listen to this exclusive interview on security challenges in aviation now.
Marine Professional. Former Director of Operation.
2 个月Airports and aviation stakeholders should commit to?the introduction of automation and technological innovation, while rethinking the role of human workers. Airports should embrace technology designed to serve humans, and humans should remain at the centre of technology's development, operations, and maintenance.